Highly uniform and low turn-on voltage Si field emitter arrays fabricated using chemical mechanical polishing

Turn-on voltage of about 30 V is observed in 1-mu m gate-aperture Si field emitter arrays fabricated using oxidation sharpening and chemical mechanical polishing. Small emitter tip radius (similar to 10 nm) was achieved from low temperature oxidation sharpening. The gate leakage current is observed to be less than 0.01% of emitter current over the range of measurement. Devices show excellent emission uniformity for different sized arrays. Current saturation was observed at high gate voltages because of low dopant concentration of the substrate. Below the saturation region, the current-voltage characteristics obey the Fowler-Nordheim field emission theory.